Page:Encheiridion of Epictetus - Rolleston 1881.pdf/48

12 F you wish to advance, you must be content to let people think you senseless and distraught as regards external things. Wish not ever to seem wise, and if ever you shall find yourself accounted to be somebody, then mistrust yourself. For know that it is not an easy matter to make a choice that shall agree both with external things and with Nature, but it must needs be that he who is careful of the one shall neglect the other.

OU are quite astray if you desire your wife and children and friends to live for ever, for then you are desiring things that are not of yourself to be of yourself, and to control that which is not in your power. So also if you desire that your servant never should display any shortcomings, you are a fool; for that is as much as to desire that imperfection should not be imperfection, but something else. But if you wish never to fall short of your desires, this indeed is possible to you; this therefore practise, namely, the practicable.

β. You own a master when another has power over the things that are pleasing or displeasing to you